Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Sunday, March 22, 2015

Report: Mulgrew Is Negotiating With Cuomo On His Own, Going Around NYSUT

Okay, I missed this extraordinary NT2 blog post from a few days ago.

I wish I hadn't - it's that extraordinary.

Read the whole piece, in its entirety over at NT2.

But the gist is this:

Cuomo's approval numbers have tanked because of his attacks on teachers.

People are conflating Common Core, the CCSS tests and Cuomo's push for teacher evaluations all into one and are blaming Cuomo for all three.

NT2 says the numbers would be even worse if NYSUT hadn't pulled their TV ads:

And think of what the drop might have been had NYSUT not pulled its TV ads a month ago. They were good ads. They featured women teachers speaking directly to Cuomo saying in effect: “How dare you say that I’m the problem.”

Nonetheless, Cuomo's getting hurt bad in this battle, even with the ads down.

But it doesn't matter, because no matter how weak Cuomo is at this moment, the UFT leadership is looking to help him out:

This post is actually about NYSUT, once the state’s most powerful union, but now a shell of itself due to internal conflict within its own ranks and with other teacher unions.  One would have thought that Cuomo’s unprecedented attack would have unified the teacher reps, but no.  They are still fragmented, still paralyzed, still seemingly unable to capitalize on this moment in which Cuomo seems so vulnerable on education policy.

(Even as we are writing this, the UFT’s Mike Mulgrew is negotiating with Cuomo’s office on his own, going around NYSUT.)

NT2 blog ends the post with this:

The entity that may capitalize on Cuomo’s vulnerability, however, is the Assembly.  Now that the Assembly has taken ethics off the table, it’s free to do what it wants to do – a wholesale re-write of Cuomo education policies.

Cuomo, stung by the poll, and wanting mainly and perhaps only an ethics victory, might go along. NYSUT would benefit, although not as a result of its own efforts. It will simply luck out.

I've been pointing out for weeks now how the union leadership has been fighting a half-assed battle against Cuomo instead of going for his throat.

Now we know why.

The sellout is being negotiated by Mike Mulgrew and the UFT leadership.

12 comments:

  1. Toss the Quisling Vichy in a leaky liferaft w Randi an d push them overboard.

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  2. Mulgrew is throwing teachers under the bus in order to ingratiate his status with the neoliberal plutocracy.

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    1. He is a disgrace - vote the bum out!

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  3. Trying to cut himself a cut of the hedgies' pie, no doubt.To think a woodshop teacher....

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  4. After all these years, isn't it obvious that it's Weingrew job to sell us out?

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  5. Younger teachers always ask why I hate the UFT so much. Instead of explaining myself, I think I will just print out this blog entry and hand it to them.

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  6. I think that it is less Mulgrew going around NYSUT leadership and more about him just deciding this sellout is important enough for him to handle himself. Saying he is "going around NYSUT" implies that they are some powerful entity that he has to get around. NYSUT leadership are simply the puppets that Mulgrew and Randi themselves installed last spring. Mulgrew IS NYSUT leadership because AFT/NYSUT leadership is the UFT leadership.

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    1. I agree, Brian. I was just using NT2's language in the post.

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    2. It's difficult for me to comment on this because I think Mulgrew is one of the worst major labor leaders in America and I am astonished at how little support he has among the rank and file. That said, I also think the crew running NYSUT now can only be better than Dick Iannuuzzi's bunch. Dick was a shameless cheerleader for Race to the Top and Common Core and signed off on the APPR system we have now, which is terrible.

      I know, I know, the current system has resulted in almost every teacher earning highly effective or effective ratings, but it is still a mess and still a waste of time for us teachers to deal with. Dick and Pallotta embarrassed themselves (as the current leadership has done) by backing the wrong people and wasting millions of dollars in VOTE COPE monies. Dick's reign gave us Tier 5 and Tier 6 and a property tax cap. Magee and her crew might be a bunch of incompetents, but Iannuzzi and his minions were even worse.

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    3. The crew running NYSUT is not better than "Iannuzzi's bunch" simply because they are one and the same. Iannuzzi was just a Mulgrew/Randi puppet as well. When he started to break from the Unity party line he was replaced, it's that simple. The idea that Iannuzzi had any power to make decisions is laughable, just as it is laughable to think that Karen Magee has any power.

      The decision makers at NYSUT are Mulgrew and Weingarten. They do it through their chief puppet Andy Pallotta. Iannuzzi was only a cheerleader for the things you mentioned because he was told from Mulgrew/Weingarten to be one. When he stopped with that whole charade he and his allies were ushered out so that people who would be more willing to do the bidding of Mulgrew/Randi could take over. Nothing illustrates this better than Karen Magee's sorry performance of shilling for the Common Core at the AFT Convention last summer.

      The sooner membership understands that NYSUT leadership is simply a front for Mulgrew/Randi to run NY State and the AFT the sooner we have a chance at installing leadership who actually represents the membership.

      In 2016, the delegates from every non-UFT local should be supporting whatever candidates are NOT endorsed by Mulgrew/Unity Caucus. That's the only way you will get independent leaders who serve the membership. Of course there is virtually no chance of that happening with Mulgrew/Unity Caucus handing out patronage gigs to local presidents who support them.

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    4. Any positive changes that will happen in this legislative cycle have come from educators and parents across the state making their voices know - not from our unions. We'd been saddled with 50% VAM had it not been from thousands of us who march, show up a forum, write and demonstrate against Cuomo policies to our legislators, speak up at board meetings, write opeds and the like. I have done research on VAM and sent it to my Rep and Senator, with of whom now do not support Cuomo's Budget. Whatever win we get it's OURS, AFT, UFT or NYSUT.

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  7. Lee Cutler got around 45% of the vote last year. You mean to tell me there is that much patronage to throw around so you guys cannot turn around another 6% in 2017. What will it take?

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